The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and in particular, to a technology to correct image inclination in an image forming apparatus.
In an image forming apparatus used widely today including an image forming apparatus of an electrophotographic system, when conducting image forming on a large amount of sheets, recording sheets are conveyed successively to an image forming position one by one for image forming.
In case of a conventional image forming apparatus, there is investigated a technology to convey a recording sheet without causing skewing for the purpose of forming on a recording sheet an image which is neither inclined nor deviated positionally. For that purpose, there is employed a recording sheet conveyance method wherein, when a recording sheet is conveyed to an image recording position, the recording sheet is stopped momentarily this side of the image forming position so that a loop of the recording sheet may be formed, and then, the recording sheet is conveyed to the image forming position.
The recording sheet conveyance method stated above is effectual on the whole and it is employed widely for an electronic copying machine or the like. However, in the method mentioned above, it is difficult to eliminate skewing and shift thoroughly for conveyance of recording sheets of various types, and skewing and shift are sometimes caused depending upon a thickness or a size of a recording sheet. Further, even in the case of conveyance at high speed, skewing and shift are sometimes caused, which has caused problems that design and assembly of a conveyance section for a recording sheet require a highly advanced technology, an increase of copying speed or printing speed is impeded, and recording sheets to be used are limited.
The invention solves the problems in conveyance of recording sheets in conventional technologies, and its object is to provide an image forming apparatus capable of forming an uninclined image on a recording sheet.
The object of the invention stated above can be attained by an image forming apparatus having therein an inclination degree detecting means which detects inclination of a recording sheet conveyed to an image recording position where an image is formed on the recording sheet, and an image angle correcting means which changes an angle of an image to be formed based on information coming from the inclination degree detecting means.